JONATHAN FAST
MORTAL GODS
For Howard and Bette Fast
PART I
A Distinguished Emissary from Alta-Ty
I
Nick Harmon ascended Post 14 to Morgan Grim’s office wondering if this time he was going to be fired. He had fouled up occasionally during his three years in the Public Relations Department at Mutagen Laboratories, but yesterday had been the worst.
A technical paper had been delivered to his robo-sec describing a revolutionary breakthrough in “random mutation prediction.” Nick’s responsibility was to rewrite it, making it intelligible to the general public, and to distribute it to the news magasettes and holovision stations throughout the Federation of Worlds.
The problem was that Nick hadn’t come to work at all that day. Breakfasting at the club he had run into Althea Clinger, an old girl friend of his, and at her suggestion they had visited one of the islands in the sky, an isolated place of sleepy lagoons and rainbow-plumed peacocks. There they had fucked all day and bathed under waterfalls and dozed on mosses, soft as down.
Nick Harmon had a weakness for women, and they generally had a hard time keeping their hands off him. He was twenty-eight, rangy and handsome, with a head of black hair that wouldn’t stay combed and a sweet, lopsided grin. His legs were muscular in striped tights, his shoulders broad beneath a turquoise cape. The plain leather codpiece he affected was the latest fashion among young Averyville bachelors.
Arriving at Gamma level disc, Nick hopped out of the post and strode down the corridor to Morgan Grim’s office. He ran through a series of excuses, weighing them one by one, wondering which Morgan would be most likely to accept. Sick relative? No. Sick himself? Possibly. Sprained his ankle? Nick tried limping the next few steps. Better, but it still wouldn’t explain why he hadn’t called in. Had to be some-ihing more serious. A MagLev cab accident on the way to work. Pinned beneath a steering fin, hours to clear away the wreckage, miraculously not a scratch on him.
Ridiculous.
He reached Morgan’s door and slipped his badge in the slot; instantly the door slid open and he stepped inside.
Morgan’s robo-sec, a big silver pear, turned on her swivel base to face him.
“Good morning, Nicholas, go right in.”
In an attempt to humanize her, someone—certainly not Morgan—had inked in a face where hers should have been: long eyelashes, thick lips. Even a beauty mark.
“You look sensational,” Nick said.
“Could you please rephrase the statement?”
Nick laughed and went inside.
Morgan was sitting at his desk, a big palette-shaped slab of Incite, with a holocube in front of him, having an argument with the pygmy head inside the cube. He broke off long enough to wave Nick to a chair, then resumed the exchange.
“We can't persuade the Lifestylers to endorse Johnny Quog. Sure, Mutagen creates them, but once they leave our labs they’re independent agents and nobody tells them what to do. I wouldn’t dream of trying. I just control the largest public relations department on the planet. They control the hearts and minds of the whole damn galaxy!”
“Couldn’t you call some of them up,” the pygmy head pleaded, “and see how they feel? They must favor one of the candidates.”
“Look,” Morgan said, getting fed up, “never in history has a Lifestyler endorsed a candidate for Federation presidency, and I don’t think they’re going to start now. But if you’re that stuck on the idea you can call them yourself. Goodbye!”
He brought his fist down on the call button and the pygmy head turned gray and vanished; he leaned back in his chair, s:ghed and stretched, then smiled at Nick.
“How goes it?”
“No complaints,” Nick said.
“Isn’t that too much? They want me to get a Lifestyler to endorse Johnny Quog. They’re busting my balls. But I told them where to get off.”
Morgan was in his middle fifties, short and stout, oatmealy skin with a patina of freckles, watery blue eyes, red hair cut so short it bristled. He wore a conservative business cape and tights, and shoes with long curly toes.
“Think they’ll win the election?” Nick said absently. In his mind he was still trying to manufacture a plausible excuse for yesterday. Ah, yesterday. Lying on the moss with Althea, her
clever tongue exploring his ear, her thighs opening like the gates to heaven. . . .
. this Alta-Tyberian thing?”
“Huh?” Nick said, jolted back from his reverie.
‘‘Nicky, for Christ’s sake pay attention! Now, how much do you know about the Alta-Tyberians?”
“About as much as the next guy,” Nick bluffed. Clearly the presidential elections had been left behind and a new topic introduced. Alta-Tyberians? It did stir a memory.
“Well, none of us knows very much. They’re an extremely insular people, almost no contact with the rest of the galaxy. About a thousand years ago they had a fabulous technology—at least that’s what I’ve read. Then they melted down all their machines and became farmers. For fun, I gather, they stand on one foot and stare off into space.
“Physically they’re humanoid, but long and skinny like they’d been stretched. Blue skin. The males have a cottony white fur all over their bodies, females just have it on their heads. Some other minor differences in digestive and reproductive apparatus, and possibly psi powers.
“The 2201 star probe was the first to contact them. The Federation offered them a protectorate, but they chose to remain neutral. Then the People’s Planetary Alliance offered them worldhood. Federation countered with worldhood plus most-favored-planet status. The Alta-Tys declined everybody, but they’ve maintained peaceful diplomatic relations.”
“Why are they so popular?”
“I’ll get to that. Three years ago, early in 2223, a comet tail swept the planet. The radiation caused widespread mutation. Eighty-seven percent of the infants born since have been the Alta-Ty equivalent of Mongoloids. In less than fifty years the entire civilization will be extinct unless—”
“Unless Mutagen can manufacture a replicon. What is it?” Nick continued, getting interested. “A trisomy? A point mutation?”
Morgan shrugged. “Nobody knows. They don’t even know their karyotype. But an emissary’s scheduled to arrive within the next few weeks with a case of samples.”
“We analyze their DNA and create a replicon. That’s a lot of work. It took the human race five hundred years, if you start with Mendel.”
“It should take us five weeks. During that time the Alta-Ty emissary is going to be our guest and you're going to entertain him.”
‘‘I’m honored,” Nick said.
“Don’t be. You’re the only one we can spare for that long.”
“And what will I do with this furry fellow?”
“Do whatever you want. Teach him rocket polo. Take him flying. Show him the Lifestyler Temples—every tourist loves that.”
“Good idea,” Nick agreed. He’d enjoy it himself.
Such were the ironies of fate: here he had come expecting to be fired and instead he was being given what amounted to a five-week vacation with pay. What a pleasure it would be, as long as the Alta-Tyberian wasn’t too much bother. Alta-Tyberians. Where had he heard of them? Something important. A memory stirred, a magasette article he had read. . . .
“Of course,” Nick said, bouncing upright. “That’s w'here the pallinite comes from.”
Morgan nodded. “The secret of galactic popularity. Live on a planet that’s rich in the one mineral you need for total military superiority.”
“They use it in bombs, don’t they?”
“Not exactly. If you drain a primordial black hole of antiparticles it collapses like the biggest bomb anybody ever dreamed of. Might have been the nature of the original Big Bang, in fact. But exploding the holes is useless unless you can move them into the right position, and for that you need a tractor beam, and to build a tractor beam you need pallinite. Lots of it.”